The present invention relates to a brilliant-layer structure and an ornamental structure that are formable in any flattened shapes such as plate-like, sheet-like and film-like shapes, and are applicable, for example, to the surface of vehicles for automobile, train, etc., house furnishings such as furniture and electric apparatus, construction material, and sporting goods. More particularly, the present invention relates to a coloring structure for producing colors, which provides not only hue varying with the angle, but higher level of brilliance, lightness and saturation.
Generally, final coating for motor vehicles is in the form of a solid-color, metallic-color or pearl-color coating. The solid-color coating produces a predetermined tint by a color pigment. The metallic-color coating contains a color pigment and fine Al pieces to provide not only a color of the color pigment, but a design quality with sparkle due to irregular reflection of light produced by the Al pieces. The pearl-color coating includes a color-base coating and a transparent mica-base paint containing mica pieces applied thereon to provide not only sparkle like the metallic-color coating generated under the action of light reflected by a mica-base coating and light reflected by the color-base film, but softer reflected light than that of the metallic-color coating due to interference by the mica pieces. Recently, the use of special mica allows creation of a design quality with iridescence having hue varying with the angle.
Also available are a design seal, a marking film for forming stripes and logo mark, a sticker, etc. of light-reflecting material to be placed on the surface of various objects. Moreover, in various applications other than automotive coating, such as high-grade bottle/container and panel for office automation apparatus, household electrical appliance or the like, a three-layer structure having a color-base layer, a pearl-mica layer and a transparent skin layer placed in this order is available for a surface ornament for press-blow, blow-injection, bubble-blow molding, etc.
As described above, in recent years, there is a wide diversity of a surface ornament of various industrial goods such as automotive vehicle. Under such circumstances, there still remains development of new materials to enable a surface structure with novel design quality that is different from the metallic-color and pearl-color coatings.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a new coloring structure for producing a color, which provides not only hue varying with the angle, but significantly enhanced level of brilliance, lightness and saturation.
The present invention generally provides a structure for producing colors by reflection and interference of a light incident thereon, comprising:
a base that reflects the light to an incident side;
a brilliant layer placed on the base; and
a plurality of transparent brilliant units dispersedly contained in the brilliant layer, each brilliant unit comprising an alternate lamination of at least two polymers having different refractive indexes, the alternate lamination producing an interfered light resulting from reflection and interference of the light and a transmitted light resulting from transmission of the light, each brilliant unit controlling the interfered light and the transmitted light,
whereby the structure is provided with a coloring mechanism for producing at least an interference color resulting from the interfered light, a first object color resulting from reflection of the transmitted light produced by the base, and a second object color resulting from reflection of the light produced by the base without striking any brilliant units.
One aspect of the present invention is to provide a structure for producing colors by reflection and interference of a light incident thereon, comprising:
a first base that reflects the light to an incident side;
a second base placed on the first base, the second base having light transparency;
a brilliant layer placed on the second base; and
a plurality of transparent brilliant units dispersedly contained in the brilliant layer, each brilliant unit comprising an alternate lamination of at least two polymers having different refractive indexes, the alternate lamination producing an interfered light resulting from reflection and interference of the light and a transmitted light resulting from transmission of the light, each brilliant unit controlling the interfered light and the transmitted light,
whereby the structure is provided with a coloring mechanism for producing at least an interference color resulting from the interfered light, a first object color resulting from reflection of the transmitted light produced by an interface between the brilliant layer and the second base, a second object color resulting from reflection of the transmitted light produced by the first base, a third object color resulting from reflection of the light produced by the interface without striking any brilliant units, and a fourth object color resulting from reflection of the light produced by the first base without striking any brilliant units.